One More Stroke
by Overshadowed Medallion
Summary: An alternate ending to Death Note. What if Ryuk's time ran out when he was writing Light's name in the Death Note? One-shot. Character death. No pairings. Read and review. Story better and longer than summary.


(Author's Note below story)

**R&R?** (flame all you want, it's still reviewing!)

**DEATH NOTE ISN'T MINE!** I asked for it for Christmas, but Santa said he doesn't want to get sued...

* * *

><p><strong>One More Stroke<strong>

The thick pencil clutched in the Shinigami's slim, bony claws rested with its tip barely kissing the white paper of the black notebook Ryuk clutched in his hand, the sun in the midst of its daily decent on the horizon. He hesitated, reminiscing. Light Yagami had been the closest thing he had to what humans called a "friend." And now he would kill that friend. Light had been caught by the small human they naively called Near. Light had set out to purge the world of criminals by using his own notebook, but now, his mission would come to an end. Light was running away from the warehouse where he had been shot by a colleague.

"You have lost, Light," Ryuk stated to the air. "Didn't I say in the beginning... "When you die, the one who'll write your name down in a notebook will be me. That is the deal between the Shinigami... and the first human to get their hands on the note in the human world. Once you enter prison, I don't know when you'll die. It's annoying to wait... Your life is already over. You'll die here."

Light had now stopped running by a flight of stairs, breathing hard, clutching his wounded shoulder.

"Well, it was good while it lasted. We killed some boredom, didn't we?"

Ryuk scratched in the first line of the first character.

When had been the last time he had written a human's name in his Death Note?

Ah, yes.

Twenty years.

He had long since forgotten the victim's name, but what was left of his lifespan had been passed to Ryuk. Twenty years, exactly. No doubt, the life the Shinigami gained by killing that human was nearly up. No matter, Light's death would give him somewhere between thirty and forty years.

First character done.

As he began the second, the Shinigami mused, "We did some various and interesting things..."

Halfway through the second character, he felt an odd, and strangely painful sensation. He paused in writing and looked at his arm. Shinigami couldn't be harmed by human weapons...

"Ehh?" he stuttered as his arm began to crumble, sand trickling out of his elbow like it were a broken sand-glass. He frantically returned the pencil to the page. The years he took from that human were up. He was dying. The faster the sand poured, the faster his hand tried to move, making the characters barely legible. He had to finish this one symbol, and Light would die and his years would be added to Ryuk's lifespan...

One more stroke...

But it was already too late.

Halfway through the final line, his hand shattered as if someone had planted a cherry bomb in his skin, but had only exploded halfway.

Pieces of his skin broke apart, disintegrated, then fell into a pile of an odd substance seen only twice by the current generation of humans, the book falling freely through the air, then resting gently in the pile that held what remained of Ryuk.

* * *

><p>The lone figure walked up to the top of the building, then higher, up the ladder, and onto the platform upon which rested... Whatever the heck the thick thing protruding from the base was. All the person knew was that it kind of resembled a trumpet horn with the mouthpiece connecting it to the ground. They had never asked what it was or what it was for. They merely didn't care.<p>

They hated coming to their father's work, but the person had no choice, with their mother gone, driver's license revoked, and no friends to drive them all the way across town to the apartment complex they was forced to call home.

The one upside was coming up here to see the sunset. And tonight, it was particularly gorgeous, the kind a man might propose to his lover by. Perfect for a romantic setting.

But the person had no lover to speak of, either.

Being in your early twenties, living with your father, and having a dead-end job and no prospects had that affect on people.

The person shook their head and stared out at the sky as the sun went down. They took a few paces and promptly stepped in something. They looked down and frowned in confusion. There was a pile of... something underfoot. They stepped back and crouched down, a small breeze playing with their hair. The pile was made of a substance that looked like a cross between sand, rust, and dust, the likes of which they had never seen before. Sitting on the top of the pile was a small book.

The figure picked it up and opened it, reading the inside of the front cover. They were a linguist if nothing else.

What that human read sent chills of alarm, fear, and adrenalin coursing through their figure.

Not too far away, a young, handsome, bloodstained, once-respected man continued his flight.

_The human who's name is written in this notebook shall die..._

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> XP It seems really dry. I think it's kinda corny. Of course, it was 5 in the morning when I wrote it...

**How this came to me:** So, one night I was laying in bed, trying to fall asleep, thinking of Death note, (around 1 or 2 a.m.) and I suddenly wondered what would have happened if the life that Ryuk got from the last human he killed had run out when he was writing Light's name? If anyone is scratching their head and wondering what I'm talking about: Shinigami stay alive by writing a human's name in their Death Note. Whatever amount of years was left of that human's life when they were killed by the Shinigami is added to that Shinigami's life (e.g. if someone was to die in ten years and were killed by a Shinigami, those ten years would be added to the Shinigami's lifespan). Human's _cannot_ extend their lives in the same way, however. So, this is my take on what could have happened if Ryuk's lifespan had run out before he finished writing down Light's name.

**One more thing:** I'd appreciate it if you _didn't_ ask me "Is the person going to use the notebook?" or "Did Light get caught by the taskforce members?" or anything else about the ending, including the gender of the person that appeared. I honestly don't know. That is up to you!

May or may not be rewritten when I have more inspiration.


End file.
